BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 12 : American, Belarussian Test Positive

Jud Logan, a surprise fourth-place finisher in the Olympic hammer throw, tested positive for a steroid and became the first American in 20 years to flunk a drug test at the Games, IOC officials said Wednesday.

Prince Alexandre de Merode, chairman of the IOC medical commission, said Clenbuterol, an anabolic steroid licensed in Germany as an anti-asthma drug, was found in Logan’s urine sample.

The IOC had announced earlier in the day that marathon runner Madina Biktagirova of Belarus had been expelled from the Olympics. She tested positive for the stimulant norephedrine after finishing fourth in last Saturday’s race. Biktagirova, 27, was the women’s winner in the Los Angeles Marathon last March.

De Merode said that the backup portion of Logan’s sample had been tested, but those results were not immediately known and that no action would be taken by the IOC until both test results were known. He said the medical commission would present its findings to the IOC Executive Board today.

Logan was fourth in the hammer throw Sunday, the best Olympic finish for an American since Harold Connolly won gold in 1956.

American swimmer Rick DeMont was stripped of his gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle at the 1972 Munich Games when he flunked a test for ephedrine, a banned stimulant that was contained in a prescription asthma medicine he was taking.

Logan, 33, of North Canton, Ohio, was not available for comment, but his brother Jeff said from his home in Dublin, Ohio: “(Jud) said it was an asthma-type medicine. He doesn’t have an asthma condition. But we’ve been told by Jud and by others that at the time he was taking it, it was not a banned substance.

“When it came on the (banned substances) list in April, he ceased taking it immediately.”